A two-year search for a new director of the Health Services Research and Policy Division of the University’s School of Public Health is finally over.
University administrators recently named Susan Bartlett Foote the school’s research and policy department head.
After founding the department in the mid-1970s, professor John Kralewski ran the health services research and policy division for 20 years before leaving on sabbatical for the University of Colorado a year ago.
“He basically took our division from nonexistence to national prominence,” said Professor Bryan Dowd, the department’s interim director. Kralewski waited to return to his research on physician medical practice until the University found the right person to replace him, Dowd said. That person was Foote, he added.
Foote is president of Public Policy Partners, a health policy firm in Washington. She served as a legislative analyst for former Republican Sen. David Durenberger and spent 10 years as a tenured business professor at the University of California-Berkeley.
“I’m very excited,” Foote said. “There’s enormous opportunity, the program is among the best in the country.”
Foote contends that she is not coming to the University to salvage a fallen program.
“I’m not going there (the University) to save something that’s in trouble. I’m going there to enhance a very strong unit within the School of Public Health,” Foote said.
The Health Services Research and Policy Division studies financial and organizational issues in health care. Their findings influence policy makers at health maintenance organizations, rural clinics and long-term health care providers at community, state and national levels.
Foote considers the quality of the researchers as one of the department’s greatest assets. She plans to collaborate on curriculum with other areas of the University such as the Carlson School of Management, the Law School and the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.
Likewise, members of the division respect Foote’s reputation. Dowd called Foote, “one of the country’s leading experts on medical technology.”
Foote plans to start as director in the fall.
The Academic Health Center also recently named James Moller head of the University’s Department of Pediatrics. Moller, a professor of pediatrics, has served as the department’s interim director since 1997.
A member ofthe University faculty since 1966, Moller specializes in pediatric cardiology. Currently out of the country, Moller was not available for comment.